MagiQuest Beta

So I've been playing the MagiQuest Online Beta lately, which is a game I've been looking forward to for months now. If you're not familiar with MagiQuest, check it out here: http://www.magiquest.com/.

Anyway, the game seems promising so far. There appears to be somewhat of a following from Uru, since I believe they have the same developer.

Instructions for the Beta are here. Check it out!

Zynga Helps Haiti

There's a pretty good chance you play Farmville... considering something like 70 million people are playing it. I'm literally playing Farmville right now as I type this.

If you're an avid Farmville user and want to help make a difference in the world, why not buy some White Corn? 100% of the purchases will go to Zynga's Haiti relief efforts. Previous Farmville charity efforts have been pretty massive, so I expect this to raise a lot of money. White Corn costs 25 Farm Cash. Looks like I might need to go out and buy some Farm Cash...

Anyway, full details in the pic below:

Update: Just wanted to throw in that Zynga is also helping with Haiti through Fishville. Image below!

Free Realms Rant

So after finally getting some time to play around with Free Realms after the BIG update last month, I don't think I care for most of the combat changes.

It's much more fast paced, now, which is nice. However, battles are so easy there really isn't any challenge or strategy in it anymore. The additional powerups are neat in theory, but with battles being such a breeze, I never really need them. I miss all my cool, old abilities as well. Attaching abilities to weapons is a nice touch, but unless you really look close, it seems there isn't much difference from one ability to another.

Who knows, maybe I just need to go explore some harder battles.

Too Much Farming

After only a few days of Facebook gaming, I've come to realize there are really only 3-5 different games on Facebook. And then dozens and dozens of others that just recycle those same 3-5 formulas.

The farming games seem to be the most over-used.

Sega Stopping Mature Wii Games

Sega has announced that they are unlikely to publish any more Mature rated games for the Nintendo Wii.

This comes after relatively weak sales from MadWorld and House of the Dead: Overkill, as well as EA's Dead Space.

Not a horribly shocking revelation, I suppose. The Wii audience is younger than the PS3 or Xbox 360 audience, so I wouldn't expect impressive sales of "M" rated games on the Wii. Read the full story on gamasutra below:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/26667/Sega_Unlikely_To_Do_More_Mature_Wii_Titles.php

Chat Filter Fail

So I ran into a bug while playing Free Realms today. I contacted a staff member called a referee and got a prompt response. Below is them TRYING to help me out (I blocked out the name of the specific referee to be nice). All of the ### are words being hit by the filter.

If anyone can tell what he's saying behind the chat filter, that would be great. I guess they need to do some work on their filter!

For what it's worth, he later elaborated and helped me through the issue. But it gave me a really good laugh! :)

Steps to Kill a Community

Came across this article online titled 'How to Kill a Community in 10 Easy Steps'. Pretty interesting and definitely worth a read:

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/116198

Facebook App Games

Well, I may have finally given in. I have to admit, I've never been much of a fan of Facebook (despite me being logged in right now).

Anyway, it seems that everyone I know is addicted to some sort of Facebook game. I've played a few, but have never really put much time into any of them. I think my brother may have finally convinced me to give Farmville a second try.

Any other suggestions for games? I've tried Barn Buddy as well and so far I think I like it better than Farmville.

We'll see how it goes...